Rescuing
Democracy in the United Kingdom from our current Elected
Dictatorship
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Come
back Gilligan, all is forgiven. Penny Young, Diss, Norfolk,
to The Guardian, February 24, 2005
Spin,
not face-to-face confrontations with the voters, is the
Government's chosen method of communication. Ordinary
people are dangerous. Ordinary people might ask a question
which throws a politician 'off message'; the Cabinet member
might reveal himself or herself to be a human being like
us, and not a programmed android. Worse still, he or she
might tell the truth. Ann Leslie - Daily
Mail, September 16, 2004
Power
cut, please
Labour's
pollsters have Tony Blair running scared, because they have
informed him that if turnout at the next election is below
50%, the result will be a hung parliament. This would be
good news for those of us who, viewing the damage inflicted
by recent governments, would like nothing better than a
Parliament powerless to do anything. Letter from Ron
Phillips, London W14 - Daily Mail, February 17, 2005
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Tony
Blair's pledge cards made no mention of pensioners. Perhaps
they're the jokers. Letter to the Daily Mail from Brian
Green, Daventry, Northants - February 22, 2005
The
Guardian's Polly Toynbee says 'a profoundly nasty streak'
among voters worried about poverty, crime and immigration
might cause them to vote against the Government. Isn't
it time we replaced the present electorate with one more
to Polly's liking? Ephraim Hardcastle, Daily Mail,
February 24, 2005
Back
to the future
'Forward
not Back' is quite wrong: we must go back - back to clean
hospitals with more medical staff and fewer managers;
back to education with proven standards.
Back
to police on the street and solving crime; back to increased
employment in industry, back to ministers who stand up
for this country and back to democratic government. Then,
perhaps, we can move forward. Letter from S, M. Butler,
Shoreham-by-Sea, Sussex - Daily Mail, March 23, 2005
Virtues
of a secret ballot
Sir
- Concerning postal votes (report Mar 23) what is the
first principle of a democratic political vote? Answer:
THE SECRET BALLOT.
It
is obvious that a postal ballot is only as secret as the
moral strength of the voter. With the infinite propaganda
powers of today's electronic media, it is frighteningly
easy for devious politicians to promote politically correct
or "cool" or, most wickedly, "honest and
transparent" voting patterns, where someone failing
to vote "with his/her group" must "have
something to hide".
Postal
voting should, at best, be allowable only to persons who
are required to be stationed away from their constituency
on government business. A few temporary disfranchisements
may result, but nothing is perfect.
Letter from J. B. Lewis, Bognor Regis, West Sussex - The
Daily Telegraph, March 25, 2005
SIR
- Why on earth are people still insisting on voting for
the Labour Party this May 2005. It has lied and cheated
the public again and again during the Iraq war, immigration,
violent crime and hospital waiting list figures. It has
introduced stealth taxes and even been caught rigging
the postal voting system. To the Editor, Daily Telegraph,
from Philip Priestley, High Wycombe, Bucks. April 19,
2005
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Lies
of loppy lugs
Insincere,
a master of evasion consumed with himself and totally lacking
in principle. Recognise anyone? An old schoolfriend recalls a
big-eared boy who became PM
How
I see it, by Robert Hardman, Daily Mail, April 20, 2005
Whenever
he hears Tony Blair's pious utterance about 'a burning sense of
social compassion', whenever he hears some fluffy pledge about
'new life for Britain', Don Noble allows himself a mirthless chuckle
and casts his mind back to his schooldays with the future Prime
Minister.
Being
the same age in the same house at the same expensively austere
Scottish public school - Fettes College - Mr Noble spent much
of his youth in the company of Mr Blair. And he has never forgotten
a school trip to one of the poorest areas of Glasgow.
"Once
you had done a couple of years in the school cadet force, you
could do community work instead of playing soldiers, and we were
sent off to the Gorbals for a day," says Mr Noble. "They
were knocking down all these flats and we were there to help people
move out. I can't imagine that a bunch of public schoolboys were
much use to anyone, but we did out bit. I remember two things
very clearly, One was going into this flat occupied by a man and
about seven children who all had ice creams for lunch while he
had a bottle of sherry. The other was Blair. So much for all his
talk about helping the working classes and 'the many, not the
few'. He was having none of it and sneaked off to the pub for
the day."
Mr
Noble has fond memories of Mr Blair's almost obsessive flouting
of authority - his legalistic way of avoiding school haircuts,
his comic refusal to watch Scottish rugby internationals, and
the day that the mastermind of the war in Iraq arrived on the
cadet force parade ground wearing a pair of Chelsea boots.
But
they are memories with a darker side. His abiding memory of Mr
Blair is of his dramatic skills. "He was an actor then and
he's an actor now," he tells me as we sit above the Thames
at his riverside flat in West London.
"He
ad no principles, no sincerity, and wasn't interested in anything
if he wasn't in control. If it didn't fit his plan. A leopard
doesn't change its spots. Just look at the way he doesn't listen
to anyone - whether it's about the war or the countryside. I think
he's a rather dangerous person."
It
is a pretty damning summary of one old boy by another. Since leaving
Fettes, Mr Noble - who, like the Prime Minister is 51 - has kept
his memories to himself. But things have now reached the point
where he is happy to give his recollections of the man who hopes
to lead the nation for a third consecutive term.
"It's
not something I've really talked about before. Over the years,
people have asked me: 'What was Blair really like at school?'
and I have always said that he's been giving the same speech ever
since he was Mark Anthony in a house production of Julius Caesar.
It's the same mannerisms, the same hand movements, the same 'Friends,
Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears', But it's gone beyond that
now.
"My
feelings have been growing for a long time. As a lawyer myself,
I was disturbed by the way he was twisting the law and riding
over Parliament for his own uses. He is much more concerned with
power itself, rather than with representing this country. I don't
believe the sincerity at all. He might have convinced himself,
but that is even more scary."
The
Fettes of 1967 was a grim institution by today's standards. Casual
clothes were a sin and beatings could be administered for the
absence of a button. Even boys of 18 required written permission
before they were allowed out of the gates. Sport, especially rugby,
ruled the roost.
Fresh
from a Warwickshire day school, it was another world for the 13-year-old
Donald Noble. But he was one of the lucky ones. Not only was he
good at sport - but he found himself in a brand new house called
Arniston with a progressive young housemaster called Eric Anderson,
who would one day end up as headmaster and Provost of Eton.
Mr
Anderson had just arrived from Gordonstoun where he had taught
Prince Charles, who remains a friend to this day, and was determined
to make Arniston less barbaric than other parts of Fettes.
So
there was no fagging system - whereby younger boys would have
to do menial tasks for the senior boys - and there was no beating.
"It was quite an egalitarian place. We even had hot water
and duvets," recalls Mr Noble. "But it was a rather
odd house because the school had taken all these misfits from
lots of different houses and stuck them in a new one, so the new
place had a lot to prove."
One
of those Arniston 'misfits' was Anthony Blair, a scholar who had
arrived a year before and hod not enjoyed his first year in Kimmerghame
House. As a scholar, he had been bumped up a year on arrival.
But he was very young for his intake, it had not been a success,
and he was held back a year and transferred to Arniston.
"He
was quite small and cheeky and not very friendly, having already
been at the school for a year," says Mr Noble, who is seven
months Mr Blair's junior, "He always know how to put people
on edge. He would be the one with the caustic one-liners. His
own nickname was Loppy Lugs because of his big ears. There was
certainly an arrogance there. It's odd because his brother, William,
who was older, was nothing like that and a very decent bloke."
The
Fettes regime revolved around sport, but Mr Blair would do anything
to avoid the mainstream activities. "He hated rugby and love
football," says Mr Noble. "So on Sunday, when you could
do what you liked, he would organise football matches and he loved
that because he was in charge. He arranged games between the English
and the Scots - he played for the English. He also organised a
house basketball team, which was not regarded as a proper sport
and so was left entirely up to him. Again, he was completely in
control and he loved it. I was in the team and we went on to win
the cup. And a cup was high kudos for a house like Arniston."
Young
Blair's other passion was for the stage. His big break came when
Mr (now Sir Eric) Anderson put on a house production of Julius
Caesar and cast Blair as Mark Antony - just as he had cast Prince
Charles as Macbeth a few years before.
"Blair
was brilliant," says Mr Noble, who landed a rather less glamorous
role as one of Mark Antony's servants. "He stole the show."
Another
Blair forte was debating. "He was very active in the debating
society. I remember debating against him but he was so bloody
good. I got blown away. There was no sign of any social or political
conscience, but he loved it."
Where
the future Prime Minister failed spectacularly at school was coping
with authority. "We were all taught to play by the rules
but Blair didn't even recognise the rule book," says Mr Noble.
"Unlike most rebels, he was very good at getting on-side
with the important people. I don't think Eric Anderson knew what
to do with him. He would just put on that grin and spin his way
round a problem, just like he does today."
A
classic case was when he turned up for the cadet force - or 'Corps'
- in a pair of Chelsea boots as a rebellious gesture. "This
sergeant went berserk, but Blair kept arguing that since he was
wearing boots and since they were polished, then he was not at
fault," Mr Noble recalls.
The
same applied to haircuts. "You had to have four haircuts
a term," says Mr Noble. "Eric Anderson had this bust
of Sir Walter Scott on his desk and the rule was always that you
hair could be no longer than Walter Scott's. This was the early
Seventies and we all wanted our hair as long as possible, particularly
for the end of term. So Blair was very clever. He would have a
haircut every day for the first four days of term and then when
he was told to have a haircut towards the end of term, he would
argue that he had already had his quota. His ears came in handy
because he could hide some of his hair behind them."
The
quick-witted rebel was constantly disappearing into nearly Edinburgh
without permission. "He would often sneak out to rock concerts
or to hang out at this record ship in Rose Street. He was much
more Rolling Stones than Beatles. I think his walls were covered
in Led Zeppelin posters, that sort of stuff, rather than girls."
And
the man who went on to introduce the ASBO was seldom happier than
when enjoying a smoke and an underage pint in an Edinburgh dive.
"We tended to avoid pubs because there was a risk of meeting
a master, so seedy hotel bars were better," says Mr Noble.
One
blasphemy which young Blair regularly committed was against the
faith that was rugby. "We were each given a ticket to every
Scottish international at Murrayfield. But Blair would just tear
his up and go off to see a film," says Mr Noble.
Some
of Blair's closest friends were from the wildest house in the
school. "It was called college West and it was pure anarchy.
One of his best friends from there was Euan Macdonald, a rough,
thick-set guy, very wild, and one of his co-conspiriators. They
were always off to the pub."
In
1973, at the age of 20, Macdonald threw himself from an Edinburgh
railway bridge, a tragedy which is said to have steered student
Blair away from his wild ways and towards religion.
Much
of the anti-authority picture Mr Noble paints is rather endearing,
but he sees other traits which are as strong today as they were
then and which have increasingly come to alarm him. "He was
only ever concerned about himself, and if he didn't like something
he wouldn't play the game. Look at the way he talks about 'unequivocal
advice that the war in Iraq was legal'. it's just playing with
words to get out of trouble," says Mr Noble.
"He's
behaving in exactly the same way as he did with the haircuts and
the boots. I read once that he complained about being beaten at
school, but there was no beating in our house. It's the spin which
upsets me. I wouldn't go so far as Michael Howard to call him
a liar. But he has never had any principles when it comes to manipulating
the truth. And I don't see any sincerity in anything he says at
all."
Despite
spending many years in close proximity, the two men went on to
different universities - Mr Blair to Oxford and Mr Noble to London
- and they met only once after leaving Fettes,
"I
was training to be a solicitor when Blair was becoming a barrister
and I bumped into him in the Inns of Court. I said: 'HI' and he
just cut me dead. I suppose that I'd ceased to be of any use to
him."
Everyone
makes friends and enemies at school. As far as Mr Noble is concerned,
Mr Blair was and is neither. I certainly don't sense any deep-rooted
bitterness as we chat for several hours. Mr Noble went on to leave
the law and has built up a successful business producing videos
and DVDs. He is not a political animal and has never joined a
party, although he has familiar concerns about the state of the
nation.
The
Prime Minister's best-known friendship from school days is with
another member of that winning basketball team, Bill Gammel,who
went on to build an oil fortune and is a good friend of President
Bush. "I read that they were great friends at achool, but
that certainly wasn't the case," says Mr Noble with a laugh.
I
contact a couple of other Old Boys of the same vintage. One, a
Northern businessman who does not wish to be named, supports Mr
Noble's account of Yony Blair's schooldays entirely. "Blair
was a bloody good actor, and he's still doing it," he says.
Another
is more charitable. "Besides the acting, two things stick
out," says Hugh Kellett, now a very successful advertising
executive. "He looked rather like Mick Jagger and worked
very hard at perfecting the Jagger pout, especially when doing
an excellent renditionof Jumping Jack Flash.
"The
other was the grin, which would always make any accuser feel as
if they'd got the wrong man. The closes comparison I can think
of is the Artful Dodger - grinning a lot, assuming innocence all
the time and completely used to getting away with anything. It
made him quite a heroic figure."
"He
was a tricky, complex figure who didn't take much notice of when
he was or want't supposed to be a school. It was all a constant
dodge."
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Tactical
Voting
As
UKIP member for several years, I believe the greatest
threat facing the British is the potential loss of our
independence to govern ourselves. Once Brussels gains
complete control, everything else we are voting for in
the coming election is academic. The real decisions will
be made in Brussels by people we can't vote out.
Much
as I support UKIP's aims, I now believe the single most
important goal for British voters is to remove Blair and
his rotten Government before they complete the process
of removing our sovereignty. Only a vote for Michael Howard
will do this - Letter to the Daily Mail from Tony Beverley,
London SW10 - April 7, 2005
Perhaps
Ann Widdecombe was right about Michael Howard, but it
should have been KNIGHT with a K, and he could have saved
us from the monsters Blair and Campbell - Letter to
the Dail Mayil from Les Fletcher, Rhos-on-Sea, Colwyn
Bay, Wales - February 18, 2005
After
a clear vote against them, we still got eight non-elected
Regional Assemblies. When we vote against the EU Constitution,
we'll get them anyway. Letter from P.Cove, Aylesbury,
BUCKS.- Daily Mail, January 31, 2005
THE
TIMES slavish support for the Government worries some
members of the paper's staff, not to mention any perspicacious
readers who are left. Political editor Philip Webster
was questioned about this when he addressed colleagues
as part of an in-house 'masterclass' exercise. Small wonder.
One of his Blair-worshipping subordinates wrote a news
story yesterday poo-pooing the row over Labours anti-semitic
poster mocking Michael Howard, saying it was merely £5million
worth of 'free publicity' for the party. Ephraim Hardcastle
- Daily Mail, Febrauary 2, 2005
Hold
the front page
Further
to BBC bias (Mail), very often on BBC Breakfast and Breakfast
With Frost, coverage of the morning papers is censored.
If the front page of the Daily Mail is critical of Tony
Blair and his Soviet-style Government, it is not shown,
although the front pages of all the other newspapers are
shown. A supposedly independent broadcasting body is acting
as censor for this Government - an absolute disgrace.
Letter from Peter Fish, Chippenham, Wilts. .- Daily Mail,
February 17, 2005
SIR
- Why on earth are people still insisting on voting for
the Labour Party this May 2005. It has lied and cheated
the public again and again during the Iraq war, immigration,
violent crime and hospital waiting list figures. It has
introduced stealth taxes and even been caught rigging
the postal voting system. To the Editor, Daily Telegraph,
from Philip Priestley, High Wycombe, Bucks. April 19,
2005
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The
REAL NASTY PARTY- How
Labour is the true home of spite, bigotry and contempt for the
public
For
the health of our democracy, we, the people of the United Kingdom,
must find a way to force Mr Blair to resign
Such
defiance of the democratic process and the will of the majority
of we people of the UK, must be exposed by voters as a matter
or urgency, and not just in the two by-elections we have had this
July and the European elections in June 2004. But how can this
be done?
The
most effective way of getting our deceitful PM to resign would
be to mobilise the army of Labour MPs currently in the House of
Commons and get them to demand it, the loss of their seat to be
a penalty if they did not. All voters in Labour-held constituencies
need to write a letter along these lines to their local Labour
MPs:
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Dear
Despite
his absolute and unequivocal assurances over the past year
of the serious risk to our security of Saddam Hussein's
'weapons of mass destruction', Prime Minister Blair
has admitted, that the threat was non-existent. For that
critical error of judgement and for his gross incompetence
in handling this very important issue, I ask you to take
immediate steps to ensure that Tony Blair does the honourable
thing and resign without delay..
I
would therefore be much obliged if you would propose and
help mobilise a Parliamentary vote of 'No Confidence' in
Mr Blair which, despite Labour's huge majority, would leave
the PM with no option but to resign.
If
I get no reply to this letter, I shall assume you will continue
to support Mr Blair as our Prime Minister. In such circumstances
I shall not vote for you in the forthcoming General Election.
Signed:
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Simple,
non-violent, protest letters along these lines on a variety of
issues could be the basis for re-vitalising our democracy and
increasing voters' interest and participation in politics. Download
a printable copy of the above letter here.
There
is another way for the voice of the silent majority to be heard,
a voice that made sure broken promises would not only be revealed,
but punished in subsequent elections.
In
the year available before the General Election expected in 2005,
many topics are available as ammunition, each one asking questions.
A weapon for our purpose will be the results of Opinion Polls
in individual constituencies using ICM, NOP, Gallop, Mori
or YouGov.
Questions
suggested for this purpose are listed here.
CAST
YOUR VOTE ON A VARIETY OF OTHER IMPORTANT ISSUES HERE.
Current
and prospective Parliamentary candidates of all Parties running
for election could share a platform at public forums in every
constituency. They would be presented with the results of
polls on this issue expressed by the majority of voters in that
constituency.
The candidates could be asked if their own views and that of their
Party manifesto corresponded with the polls, and if not, how they
intended to represent the will of the majority of local voters.
Local and National Press, Radio and TV coverage would be arranged
and the results published on this web site.
Here
is another powerful strategy for using your vote effectively in
the forthcoming General Election. Send your sitting and prospective
MPs a letter defining your requirements if they want your vote.
This example deals with the proposed
EU Constitutional Treaty.
Your
letters would end: "If you do not answer
this letter, I shall take it that you intend to follow the Government
line. I shall act accordingly in the forthcoming General Election.
Or
why not create a questionnaire that you send to all the candidates
in your constituency, getting them to give yes/no answers to questions
of your choice, and ending it with the same paragraph(above).
Download
a printable example of the questionnaire.
It
is high time for the people of this United Kingdom to stop allowing
themselves to be manipulated by politicians. We need our representatives
in Parliament to genuinely reflect the view of the majority in
their own constituency, even if this means going against their
personal and/or their party's policy. While they may argue their
case, hoping to change the minds of the majority in their constituency,
they should ultimately be obliged to reflect the majority view
of those who elect them.
It
will be argued by politicians of all parties that most voters
don't have the knowledge necessary to express an opinion on important
subjects at issue, and that our vote is a form of delegated democracy.
We should argue that it is their duty to ensure that we voters
do have ready access to such information as is necessary to form
an intelligent opinion. That, after all, is one main purpose of
Opposition Parties in our Parliamentary Democracy.
Most
important of all, such proceedings would rekindle in voters their
latent interest and obligation to cast their vote, knowing that
the candidate of their choice would be more likely to act in accordance
with their wishes. A much higher turnout in elections would be
the result.
Contact
your local Party Chairman. Gain his support for setting up public
forums in your constituency on these, as well as any other relevant
topics, well before the next General Election expected in 2005.
You should then, depending on the integrity of the candidate of
your choice, feel fairly certain that your view on any subject
being debated in Parliament will more accurately be reflected
by your representative in that assembly.
